Sort of San Francisco Fan Club

Thesis: To consider what the chance intersection of ideal beauty and intellectual confusion would mean in determining the fate of Earth. Phase 1: While touring San Francisco, I stayed at the Sir Francis Drake. The bartenders were adequate. Phase 2: I began a blog. I learned romance might exist, but depends upon whether a man and a woman can tread the maze individually and reach its center at the exact same instant in time. Phase 3: The center comes and goes as if it were a mirage.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

The legend of Prometheus dates
to a trilogy called the "Prometheia," originally attributed, but now disputed,
to an ancient Greek named Aeschylus. It tells the story of a Titan, Prometheus,
who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humankind. As punishment, Zeus had
him bound to a rock atop a mountain where an eagle comes every day to feast on
his liver. Eventually, Prometheus is freed by Hercules .... and, you can read the
trilogy if your curiosity is sufficient to learn the rest of the tale. The painting here is an
oil by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens. It was begun in 1611/1612 and
completed in 1618 and is titled "Prometheus Bound." It is in the Philadelphia
Museum of Art collection. The eagle was painted by Frans Snyders, a specialist
animal painter.

Quotes
to remember ....

It
is said there is a quote for any and every occasion and, when one finds it,
someone else will find another which contradicts it .... and, someone else will
locate an earlier version of both. (Or,
should that be "of each?")

As
a college boy, I encountered a number of quotes which struck my fancy. Among
them was this one: "Whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad."

The
line was spoken by Prometheus in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "The Masque
of Pandora."

I
since have discovered a number of references using descriptive words other than
the term, "mad," to illustrate the concept, and written examples demonstrating
that the thought goes back to other "Old Greeks," ­such as Sophocles and
Euripides, if not to even more "distant" times.

English
poet and playwright, John Dryden, who lived about two centuries before
Longfellow actually wrote this: "For those whom God to ruin has design'd,
He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind." Sort of sounds the same,
does it not?

No
matter who, what, where, when or how, I still like the quote, occasionally use
it and have seen indication it often is reasonably correct and accurate. A fascinating side note of this (to me, anyway) is the possible connection between the Greek mythological woman Pandora and the Biblical woman Eve. There is a theory, which I will not elaborate on at this time, that they are based on the same individual. I sort of think it is a very plausible theory.

And,
with that, here is another quote which I recently discovered and to which I am drawn:

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

I adore trees. No ands, ifs or buts. I absolutely
love them. In the midst of them is one of two places I feel most comfortable
and most at home. The other place is in a canoe or a boat somewhere on "big
water" .... Lake Superior is one such setting.

So, it really pained me to have a tree cut down,
which is what is happening in the two photographs taken last week. The ash tree
was diseased and would have to be taken down at some point. The point arrived,
in my mind, a few weeks ago, so I made the necessary arrangements. The cutting crew
blocked off the street and dropped it there, then cut it up and hauled it away.
Such is the fate of life .... There are two songs here this time. One is the Taliesin Orchestra rendition of, "The Memory of Trees," by Enya. It sort of goes along with the photographs. The second, "I Will Always Love You," sung by John Nommensen Duchac, also known as John Doe, is here because it came up in a recent conversation. For those of you who watch films with a critical eye, often a few times, you may have become aware that a man is singing this song during the "saloon" dance scene with Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner in the film, "The Bodyguard." It took me almost forever to track down the singer, and it turned out he is one who has been around for just about that long -- but, his usual music is not on my listening list. For three or four reasons, his is my favorite version of the piece .... mostly my favorite, I suppose, because John Doe sings it with a Western twang and because the cowboy embedded deeply within me is drawn to it ....

Saturday, August 26, 2017

People and their priorities sometimes puzzle me.
Perhaps, I should rephrase that: Individuals and their priorities often mystify
me. Yes, that is better.

I recently watched the film, "The November
Man." It was made in 2014 (very recent, by my standards) and is based on a
1987 novel (sort of recent, by my ....) written by Bill Granger, a newspaper
man turned novelist. In the movie, there is an exchange of dialogue between
Peter Devereaux (a sort of retired CIA operative whose code name was November,
played by Pierce Brosnan) and Arkady Federov (the Russian president­-elect and
a former Russian general, portrayed by Lazar Ristovski, a "famous"
Serbian actor). Also in the scene is Olga Kurylenko (a Ukrainian-born actress
who plays Mira Filipova impersonating Alice Fournier, and who shared the
spotlight with Daniel Craig in the James Bond film, "Quantum of
Solace").

While the dialogue is going on, Devereaux is holding
a revolver with a single round in it (a single bullet, to interpret for the
uninitiated) on Federov, spinning the cylinder, asking a question of Federov
and, if he does receive an answer, pulling the trigger. The exercise is a
variation of Russian Roulette. The end result is, almost always, a death. So
then, here is the dialogue:

Devereaux: Nineteen ninety-nine. You supported an American operation
to impersonate Chechen terrorists. Who was the American agent who ran it?

Federov: You are sit (sic) on my
shirt.

Devereaux to Fournier, handing her a
second handgun: Mira,
take this. Shoot him if you have to.

Federov: You are not going to
kill me.

Devereaux: That's for you to
decide. We're gonna play a little game that I believe was invented in your country.
I'll ask you once more. Who was the American agent?

(As he is speaking, Devereaux places
a single round in the revolver and spins the cylinder. When he receives no
response from Federov, Devereaux pulls the trigger. There is an audible click
as the hammer falls on an empty chamber of the cylinder. Devereaux again spins
the cylinder.)

Devereaux: I'll ask you again.
Was it Weinstein? Hmm?

(Again, Federov does not respond and
again Devereaux pulls the trigger. And again, there is an audible click as the
hammer falls on an empty chamber of the cylinder. Devereaux again spins the
cylinder.)

Devereaux: Come on! You piece of
shit! Your odds are running out. Who was the American agent? Was it Weinstein?

Federov: Hanley.

Devereaux: John Hanley ....
Hanley?

Federov: Yeah.

(Devereaux is disbelieving. He takes
a photograph showing himself and two other men from his pocket and holds it in
front of Federov's face.)

Devereaux: Was it this guy? The
guy in the middle?

(Federov points to the Hanley.
Fournier sees the photograph and confirms Federov's identification.)

Fournier: No. Peter. That's
him. The bald guy.

Devereaux: Shh, shh ....

Now, what mystifies me is why someone would or how
someone could be concerned with the condition of their shirt when confronted by a
known CIA assassin, who in all probability will kill him within minutes? Is
this the ultimate "ubermensch" or is it someone in dire need of
psychiatric help?

More importantly, perhaps, is why this
"incident" should amount to more than a random thought passing
through my mind, rather than turning into a point of fascination. I suppose it
is because, as I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, the priorities
people have often mystify me.

And, as I frequently have written in previous
posts, I am driven by an intense and an immense curiosity.

And, why is that? As William Shakespeare and a few
others both before him and since him noted and have written, I suppose the answer is because "the devil drives."

By the way (I love to write those three
words), although it is made clear again and again in the film that he truly is
an evil man, Federov does leave the room alive .... but, he does not escape
eventual retribution. The final scene in the movie shows him on a multi­­­-million
dollar yacht anchored a few hundred yards offshore in an unnamed sea. He is
accompanied by a few beautiful women and he is drinking (presumably) vodka.
Abruptly, a bullet rips through his head and his body falls over the rail of
the yacht and disappears into the depths of (Homer's) wine-dark sea.

Whoever actually fired the shot is not shown, but
there is a probable candidate and two distant possibles ....

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Berkley English professor Phillip
Ainley (played by Ray Milland) has a wife and young son who are killed in a gas explosion in their home. Unable to cope with the situation, he begins
to drink heavily and becomes suicidal. His friends, Tom Lawry (also an English
professor, portrayed by John Hodiak) and Katherine Mead (Lawry's fiance, a war widow
and the English department secretary, depicted by Nancy Davis, the future Mrs.
Ronald Reagan) try to return Ainley to normalcy (whatever that might be ....). Karl Tunberg and Leonard Spigelgass wrote the original screen play,
and Fletcher Markle directed the production.

The final scene of the film features
Ainley making closing remarks to one of his classes. Here are his words, as
best I could transcribe them while watching it and recalling them a few days
ago:

This is our last hour together. I'm not
going to keep you for it. But, I'll remember every one of your faces for the
rest of my life, and I rather imagine you'll remember mine because we've gone on
a journey together.

There were times when I lost my way and somewhere along the
road you and others became the teacher and I, the student. You've taught me
that as long as one man is without an answer, all men are without an answer.
You've taught me that only he who chooses to be alone, is alone. And so, even
though our small journey is over and we go our separate ways, we'll never
really be apart. Til the end of time we'll carry in our hearts the things that
we've shared together.

I'm sure someone somewhere said that
better than I, probably Shakespeare, surely the Bible, but I think it's
something a man should say at last to himself. As you know, I teach English,
but there are some things very hard to say in it. Goodbye is one of them. So,
if you don't mind, I'll use my first-year Spanish: Vaya con Dios. Go with God. Let's all go with God.

If someone were to ask me why I
decided to post Ainley's "sort of soliloquy" here, I might begin rambling on
and on with thoughts such as these: Movies in the 1940s and 1950s frequently
told stories and were, in a manner of speaking, morality plays worthy of
reflection; the words struck me as eloquent and profound as I heard them and later
remembered them; the words coincide with my own recent thoughts and questions
about life and living; I am a romantic and a fool, and I constantly am looking
for my own meaning and purpose; and, and, and ....

Well, those things, yes .... but, in
truth, I am pretty much of a lost soul stumbling in a seemingly never-ending
maze and keep looking for some manner of absolute, universal truth.As Ainley's concluding dialogue would
seem to indicate, he has begun to travel on the road toward learning how to live "normally"
once again despite the loss of his wife and son, just as Mead had adjusted to
the loss of her husband during World War II. Sort of a "happy ending." Films of the 1940s and 1950s generally had happy endings -- which is what I require of all stories in my life and which is
another reason why I put together a post about the movie. The title of the post
is in reference to the music, but "with you or without you" certainly ties in
nicely to the substance of the film. Scala, incidentally, is a Belgian women's
choir whose musical selections frequently are covers of rock pieces. The final video is there just for the fun of it, baby .... and, as a reminder of the brevity of life ....Anyway and whatever .... go with god .... or
whomever your inner voice listens to ....

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

There
are times I feel like I have been (always am) asleep at the switch; blind in
one eye and cannot see out of the other; a complete fool, idiot, buffoon; a man
walking through life aimlessly, without purpose or intent.

I
can see a number of you are nodding in agreement with that assessment.

More than a few years ago, I began watching a film never-before seen by
me on television. It had been running for some time, so I had not seen the
credits and I assumed the story was based on one of William Shakespeare's
plays. It was an "older" movie, "The Lion in Winter," with
Peter O’Toole playing Henry II; Katharine Hepburn portraying the banished and
imprisoned one-time queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine; Anthony Hopkins as their
eldest son, Richard the Lionhearted; one of the future James Bond actors,
Timothy Dalton, here as King Philip II of France; and assorted other
actors/characters.

I have written about this play/film in the past and I will not attempt
to go into any details of the story other than to say the closing lines
exchanged between Henry and Eleanor as the film ended really stunned me. I
re-read the play recently -- those closing lines several times -- and, I have
been thinking about them often -- pondering them -- in both a religious and a secular sense. The lines
were:

Henry: You
know, I hope we never die.

Eleanor: I
hope so, too.

Henry: You think there's any chance of it?

(Eleanor smiles, then starts to laugh. Henry joins her in the
laughter. The music rises as we begin to pull back and we cannot hear her
reply. We can, however, see them talking as Eleanor moves to the deck of the
ship [which will return her to imprisonment] and takes up position at the rail.)

I
later learned the play was the work not of Shakespeare, but of James Goldman, a
contemporary in the sense he was born in 1927 and died in 1998. I later bought a
copy of the play and read it. Since Goldman wrote both the stage play and the
screenplay for the film, I was not surprised to discover the dialogue was the
same in both. I noted that Goldman also wrote both the stage play and the
screenplay for a drama about Sherlock Holmes, "They Might be Giants,"
and the original screenplay for, "Robin and Marian," two of my
favorite productions, as well as a number of other works.

My
prior unawareness of a writer with the talent and the imagination of Goldman is
the basis for my opening paragraph.

The closing words of Maid Marian to Robin Hood are equally eloquent and
fascinating to those of Henry and Eleanor:

"I love you. More than all you know. I love you more
than children. More than fields I've planted with my hands. I love you more
than morning prayers or peace or food to eat. I love you more than sunlight,
more than flesh or joy, or one more day. I love you .... more than God."

In the next life, maybe, I will write something equally profound or,
maybe, encounter a woman who will say such words to me .... and mean them.

Something special ....

Sort of About Me

Bachelor of Arts with a double major in English (= literature) and history (= reality). Master of Arts in literature. Once upon a time, U.S. Marine Corps = Semper Fidelis. These things pretty much explain everything there is to know about me.
Other than that, ask, if you actually are curious .... I like to drift where the current takes me within this endless sea of blogs, read what others write in their blogs, observe, learn, question and, hopefully, understand, while offering a few comments of my own along the way .... by the way, the photo of me actually is me .... was me .... will be me .... hmmmm ....

Romance, from Fram

I discoveredRomance might yet exist,but it depends uponwhether a manand a womancan tread the maze,individually,and reach its centerat the same momentin time.

The Actual Instant of Love, from Fram

I am a jealous guy, of the sort John Lennon sang about. Any man who says he is not a jealous guy either has no genuine depth of feelings for the woman he is saying it about or is a liar. I can remember very distinctly, for example, when my feelings for my wife vanished. It happened in an instant. When love vanished, so did jealousy.

Actual love happens in an instant, I believe, although it does not always seem to be that way. I am not talking about "love at first sight," but, rather, "love at first instant." This means two people might have known each other for weeks, even for years, before the "instant" occurs. It comes with a single sentence spoken by one, or a single action taken by one, that strikes the other like lightning.

Affection grows; love is born. Love also disappears in an instant, I believe, although it does not always seem to happen that way. Incidental to my point, I do not believe in "love at first sight." That is no more than simple, physical or emotional attraction, which is the cause of countless and never-ending problems.

Happiness is momentary, from Fram

When I was age eighteen, a wise, old man of twenty-six told me that happiness is a momentary thing. It might last for minutes or days or weeks or, sometimes, even for a few years. But, like life itself, happiness is a transitory thing and, like fate, it is capricious. At some point along the road, I came to realize this wise, old man had been right.

The Three Sorts of Friends ....

Though friendships differ endless in degree,The sorts, methinks, may be reduced to three.Acquaintance many, and Conquaintance few;But for Inquaintance I know only two --The friend I've mourned with, and the maid I woo!

Time retains ....

Time retainsits sacred right to meddlein each earthly affair.Still, time's unbounded powerthat makes a mountain crumble,moves seas, rotates a star,won't be enough to tearlovers apart: they aretoo naked, too embraced,too much like timid sparrows.

Old age is, in my book,the price that felons pay,so don't whine that it's steep:you'll stay young if you're good.Suffering doesn't insult the body.Death? It comes in your sleep,exactly as it should.

When it comes, you'll be dreamingthat you don't need to breathe;that breathless silence isthe music of the darkand it's part of the rhythmto vanish like a spark.

Yesterday is History ....

Yesterday is mystery --Where it is TodayWhile we shrewdly speculateFlutter both away.

Emily Dickinsonpoet"Yesterday is History"

Never the answers

The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the questions that have bothered him to the last day of his life, knowing he will never get the answers.

Will Duranthistorian, philosopher, teacher

The equality of man

Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.

Thomas Jeffersonpresident, patriot, free thinker

The audience

Better to write for yourselfand have no publicthan to writefor the publicand have no self.

Cyril Connollywriter, editor, literary critic

I am free

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.Robert Heinleinscience fiction writerphilosopher

Marine Corps Forever, from Fram

To all Marines, those among the dead, those who still live, those yet to be born: Semper Fidelis, to the end of time ....

Have gun .... will travel

Once upon a time: "She said, There is no reason ...."

Time & again ....

Time .... he's waiting in the wings .... he speaks of senseless things .... but, if you could heal a broken heart, wouldn't time be out to charm you?

Voluspo 28-29

Alone I sat when the Old One sought me .... The terror of gods, and gazed in mine eyes .... "What hast thou to ask? why comest thou hither? .... Othin, I know where thine eye is hidden" .... Deep in the wide-famed well of Mimir .... Mead from the pledge of Othin each morn .... Does Mimir drink: would you know yet more? ....

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Magic Girl from Fram

I look at her face, I stare into her eyes.She is there yet, the girl from long ago.Her smile has dimmed only a slight degree,but her face shows scars from tears,a lonely expression there for all to see.

I sense her there, the girl from long ago,I know she is she, and once she was for me,but how do I know what is left inside her?Is she magic still, or has life changed her?Can a woman return, a magic girl to be?